Senator Elizabeth Warren condemned the Pentagon’s decision to remove four recently killed US service members from its official Iran war death toll, calling it “an act of cruelty”. The change has prompted criticism because opponents say it makes the conflict’s human cost less clear and could diminish public accountability for continuing military action.

The Pentagon’s casualty database reduced the Iran-war death count from 18 to 14 by separating four deaths during renewed fighting into another overseas-operations category; dozens of wounded personnel were also moved. Three troops were killed in an Iranian missile strike on a base in Jordan on 17 July, while a fourth died the following day during the controlled destruction of an Iranian drone at a base in Iraq.